Project X (2012)
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Synopsis:
Project X is a 2012 comedy film directed by Nima Nourizadeh in his feature film debut, written by Michael Bacall and Matt Drake based on a story by Bacall, and produced by The Hangover director Todd Phillips.
The plot follows Thomas (Thomas Mann), Costa (Oliver Cooper) and J.B. (Jonathan Daniel Brown), three friends who plan to gain popularity by throwing a party, a plan which quickly escalates out of their control.The title Project X was initially a placeholder for a final title, but interest generated by the secretive title resulted in it being kept. The film was cast through a nationwide open casting call to find people who never acted before or who had limited acting experience. The majority of the cast were sourced from this casting call, but a few with prior acting credits, such as Mann, were accepted after multiple auditions. Filming took place on sets entirely in Los Angeles, California over five weeks on a $12 million budget. The film is presented as a home video from the perspective of an attendee using a camera to document the night's events.
High school students Costa and J.B. plan to throw a party for their friend Thomas's birthday, aiming to increase their popularity among their schoolmates. Thomas' parents go away for the weekend, leaving him alone in the house, but warn him not to have too many people over, and not to drive his father's Mercedes.
Thomas is reluctant to have the party at his house out of fear of his parents finding out, but Costa continues with his plan. Costa hires AV-student Dax to chronicle the night's events. Throughout the day Costa and J.B. advertise the party through the school. Thomas himself invites Alexis, the hottest girl at school, and his best friend Kirby, whom he has a crush on.
Costa, Thomas and J.B. go to buy marijuana from drug-dealer T-Rick. While T-Rick gets the marijuana, Costa steals his lawn gnome to use as a party mascot. As they leave, T-Rick discovers his gnome stolen and
chases after them but they escape in Thomas' mini-van. As night falls the party's start time passes but no one turns up and Thomas worries that the party will fail. Suddenly, party-goers arrive en-masse and the party becomes an instant hit. Thomas intends to limit the party to the backyard and poolhouse with the house guarded by two child security guards, Everett and Tyler. However, more and more people begin to arrive and the party moves beyond their control and into the house. Thomas questions Costa on how he advertised the party, forcing him to confess that he put out ads on Craigslist and on a local radio station, worried that no one would attend.
As the party grows, T-Rick's gnome is smashed, revealing it to have contained dozens of ecstasy tablets, which are quickly consumed by the party goers. The police arrive, responding to a noise complaint, but the party goers remain silent, convincing the officers that the party has already ended. After the police leave and the party resumes, Thomas kisses Kirby and reveals that he loves her. Alexis meanwhile flirts with Thomas throughout the night and eventually seduces him. Kirby walks in on the pair as they are about to have sex and leaves the party upset. The noise and chaos of the party, which has now spilled out into the surrounding neighborhood, receives televised news coverage with helicopters flying over the house. A dwarf guest drives Thomas' dad's Mercedes into the pool after being put into an oven by other partygoers.
The police return in force but are overwhelmed and repelled by the guests. They decide to let the party die naturally before moving in. T-Rick arrives armed with a flame thrower in an attempt to reclaim his gnome. He begins setting fire to the trees and cars in search of Costa, forcing the guests to flee and the party to end. The police shoot his flamethrower pack and it explodes. Thomas, Costa, J.B., and Dax flee with the other guests as Thomas' house burns and the SWAT team moves in to retake the neighborhood. The neighborhood is left aflame.
By morning the friends return to their respective homes to discover what punishment awaits them. After his parents return, Thomas's father commends him for managing to throw the party because he thought he was a loser, but he uses Thomas's college fund to pay for the damages. At school, Thomas, Costa and J.B. are cheered by the students and Thomas reconciles romantically with Kirby. In the epilogue, T-Rick is recovered alive following the explosion, Thomas is convicted on 3 different charges including inciting a riot, and Costa and J.B. are acquitted; Costa because of his expensive lawyer and J.B. because his parents convince the court that he is mentally incapable and unfit to stand trial. Dax meanwhile is under investigation for the disappearance of his parents. In an interview with Jillian Reynolds, Costa promises his next party will be even better.
Release
Project X held its world premiere on February 29, 2012, at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California, followed by an after party with performances by Kid Cudi, Tyler, The Creator, and The Hundred in the Hands. Party guests were greeted by a Los Angeles Police Department cruiser and a bouncer warning them to keep their clothes on.The film was scheduled for release in November 2011, but in August of that year the date was pushed back four months to March 2012. The film first received a wide release on March 1, 2012, in Australia, followed on March 2, 2012 by the United States and Canada.
Box office
As of April 30, 2012, the film has grossed $54,731,865 in the United States and Canada and $40,000,000 from markets elsewhere – a worldwide total of $94,731,865.The film opened to $1.2 million in midnight takings from 1,003 theaters in the United States and Canada. Throughout its opening day, the film's release as expanded to 3,055 theaters where it grossed a total of $8.2 million including midnight takings. The end of the opening weekend saw the film take a total of $21 million – an average of $6,891 per theater – finishing as the number 2 grossing film of the weekend behind the animated family film The Lorax ($70.2 million) and exceeding expectations that it would finish with a gross in the mid to high teens. Young male audiences, which had decreased throughout 2011 from the previous year saw an increase for the opening weekend, with 58% of the audience skewing male and 67% of those being under the age of 25.
Critical reception
Project X received generally mixed to negative reviews. The film earned a score of 48 out of 100 from 25 critics on review aggregate website Metacritic indicating "mixed or average", and garnered 26% approval from 117 critics on Rotten Tomatoes – an average score of 4.2 out of 10 – whose consensus reads: "Unoriginal, unfunny, and all-around unattractive, Project X mines the depths of the teen movie and found-footage genres for 87 minutes of predictably mean-spirited debauchery." Cinema Score polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a "B" on an A+ to F scale, with young males rating it the highest (A) and males in general rating the film higher (B+) than females (C+).
Criticism against the film focused on the perceived misogyny, mean-spirit, and "loathsome" behavior of the characters, and disregard for the effects of the use of drugs. Chris Hewitt of Empire gave the film 1 star out of 5, and referred to the central characters portrayed by Mann, Cooper, and Brown, as "spectacularly unlikeable", labeling them as "unrepentant, nihilistic, vile, venal, animalistic, avaricious, charmless, entitled, sub-Kardashian, stunningly irresponsible brats". Hewitt ended his review by stating that the film was "possibly the worst film of the last 20 years. It’s certainly the worst comedy of the last 20 years". Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter was similarly critical, calling it "grimly depressing, glumly unfunny teensploitation", but admitted that it would "enthrall a portion of the high school/college age demographic it depicts, just as it alternately outrages, confounds and disgusts other, presumably older audiences." USA Today's Claudia Puig found the film treated female characters poorly, labeling it a "heinous, misogynistic movie filled with faceless crowds and nary a character who resembles an actual human being", a sentiment echoed by Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice who felt the film promoted "skull-numbing hedonism without consequences", and "second-nature misogyny", and that the only purpose of the male characters is to "'get high, fuck bitches.'"
Robbie Collin of The Telegraph called the film " flamboyantly loathsome on every imaginable level" and compared the leads to Superbad, saying "unlike Superbad's leads, these three are poisonously unpleasant, and the supposedly comedic banter between them comes off as bullying." The Los Angeles Times's Robert Abele called the main trio "numbingly predictable" and the film itself "unoriginal", stating the film "bears a cravenly piggish attitude toward rewarding socially unacceptable behavior that feels unseemly rather than exciting".
Not all reviews were negative however. Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times positively compared the film to the 1978 comedy Animal House, believing a "funny" script and skilled editing of the footage possibly made the film the "'Animal House of the iPhone generation". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly praised the film for updating the clichés of similarly themed films from the 1970s to the 1980s like Animal House and Risky Business "so that they look just dangerous enough to make nostalgia feel naughty" but stated that the film does not offer anything more outrageous than real parties, despite implying "that it's breaking down bold new barriers of misbehavior". Gleiberman accused negative reviews of "fulfilling the role of all those uptight parents in ’50s news reports about the dangers of rock & roll" by applying moral judgments to the events of the film. Time Out's Joshua Rothkopf gave the film 4 stars out of 5, calling it "brainless", but feeling that the sheer anarchy of the film's events were "thrilling". Pete Travers of Rolling Stone praised the film as "gut-bustingly funny" that appealed to a base youth element to become "shitfaced and run amok", and also compared the film to Animal House. Travers gave particular mention to Mann as "excellent", however he also stated that Nourizadeh's filmmaking was a "disaster".
Several reviewers were particularly critical towards Cooper and his character. Hewitt called him "the most annoying movie character since Jar Jar Binks", while others similarly described him as "singularly loathsome, venal and without humor", "supremely annoying", "that dick in a sweater-vest". and a "misogynistic" imitation of Jonah Hill "minus the timing, sad sack appeal and motormouth grace. Conversely, Genzlinger praised Cooper for bringing a "mischievous likability" to Costa that "anchors" the events.
Sequel
On March 6, 2012, four days after its release, it was announced that Warner Bros. would pursue a sequel to the film, with Bacall returning to write a script treatment for the potential sequel. Bacall began writing the treatment weeks before Project X was released. Producers Phillips and Silver will decide if the treatment will be developed into a full script.
Directed by Nima Nourizadeh
Produced by Todd Phillips
Screenplay by Matt Drake, Michael Bacall
Story by Michael Bacall
Starring
Thomas Mann
Oliver Cooper
Jonathan Daniel Brown
Kirby Bliss Blanton
Alexis Knapp
Dax Flame
Cinematography: Ken Seng
Editing by Jeff Groth
Studio: Silver Pictures
Green Hat Films
Distributed by: Warner Bros.
Release date: March 2, 2012
Running time: 88 minutes
Language: English
Budget: $12 million
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